Amazing Maze 2.0

Infinite and Interactive Realtime Composition for Sampled Sound Particles

Amazing Maze is a work-in-progress that started in 1993 when I was working at IRCAM (Paris). In this realtime composition I attempted to realize ideas that have been haunting me for many years, and which I first accomplished in Lexikon-Sonate (1992-2007) for computer-controlled piano. Both pieces envisage a new type of music:
 ·which composes itself at the time of its sounding
 ·which is not merely a reproduction of a pre-fabricated notation
 ·which is capable of reacting on exterior influences
 ·which exhibits infinite temporal expansion
 ·which never repeats itself.

Amazing Maze is represented by a computer program which generates music by manipulating sampled instrumental sounds according to certain compositional strategies that are carried out in different structure generators. Each generator synthesizes its own characteristic sound world.

The compositional algorithms are currently programmed in MaxMSP by taking advantage of my Real Time Composition Library (RTC-lib). This collection of software modules offers the possibility to experiment with a number of compositional techniques, such as serial procedures, permutations and controlled randomness.

The sound material used in Amazing Maze is based on instrumental interpretations of three different types of sounds: points, grids, and planes which have been worked out for different instruments exploring sound qualities beyond the normal playing.

Requirements:

· Quicktime 6.x or later